


Destiny, etched into our skin

by unimagination



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Cheesy, Dorks, F/F, Fluff, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 10:53:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unimagination/pseuds/unimagination
Summary: When a person turns eighteen the name of the person they're destined to spend the rest of their life with is etched into their skin.Nico gets her mark.





	Destiny, etched into our skin

**Author's Note:**

> I adore soulmate fics and I've always wanted to right one so here it is. Sorry if there's any mistakes I missed.

5:42pm, five minutes away.

Five minutes until it happens. Five minutes until her life changes for good, or, well, it stays entirely the same. Five minutes until she breaks a heart or she doesn't. Five minutes until the name of her soulmate etches itself into her skin.  

She doesn't quite know how to feel about it. On the one hand if it is Alex then she can't help but think that she'd be a bit disappointed. She loves Alex, she does, they've been dating for a little over a year but she can't help feel a bit...bored. She's never really been a romantic but if Alex really is her soulmate shouldn't she feel a bit more? Even when they had first started dating there wasn't really the level of passion, or heat or need that she'd expect to feel with someone who's supposed to be the love of her life. She never even really looked at him like that before he asked her out and she distinctly remembers her reason for saying yes had been ‘why not’. There wasn't really any excitement or giddiness. She wasn't even really scared because if it didn't work out it wouldn't break her heart or anything. 

Maybe this is just the extent of it all. Maybe this is all soulmates are, someone your comfortable with. Someone you can be content with.

She hopes not.

She wishes that Alex were older, that he was getting his soulmark first. Because if they're not soulmates she knows that she's going to take it way better than he is. She always got the feeling that Alex feels way more towards her than she does for him. Which makes her feel like an utter piece of shit but she could never find it in herself to break up with him. It was either hurt him now, or possibly hurt him later. She always selfishly chose the latter.

On the other hand if it isn't Alex that's frightening and overwhelming in so many ways. While she and Alex never had this amazing, intense romance, it's safe because Alex can't hurt her, not in the soul crushing, heartrending way that soulmates are supposed to be able to. It's also easy, which while sometimes makes her feeling a bit underwhelmed with their relationship, most of the time it's a good thing. They know how to be together, they never fight and he loves her. Shouldn't that be enough? Shouldn't it be enough that she has someone? Some people never get that. Have someone that she knows will always be there for her and loves her? Sometimes she thinks that it's enough, but sometimes, when she's alone and can't sleep, she wishes she had someone who set her a light with desire, with passion. Someone who she _needs_ with her entire being. Someone who, when they leave, she misses them every moment. Someone who she can't live without.  

Maybe it's childish of her, maybe it doesn't exist, that kind of love. Maybe it something that reserved for fairy tales and fantasy.

She doesn't know how to feel because on one hand she'll be dissapointed but it'll be safe and easy and familiar. On the other it'd be terrifying and new but also exciting.

She doesn't know now to feel so she does what she always does, feigns indifference.

“I don't really get why people make such a big deal about this.” She says, trying to make herself sound bored.

5:43.

It's a complete lie. She can feel her heart racing and she feels like she might be sweating, which is gross, and her thoughts race around her head like leaves in a tornado, scattered and frantic.

Alex gives her a look that says he knows it's a lie.

He had insisted that he had to be here for this and she tried to argue, really she did, but he wouldn't budge. She doesn't want to see his face, whatever the outcome. She doesn't want to see the disappointment, the heartbreak show so obviously on his face. She doesn't want to hurt him like that. Maybe if she tells him, later, she can soften the blow somehow. She also doesn't want to see that elation on his face, pure happiness and love, knowing that she might never been able to match that.  

She also just feels guilty just standing here because she knows, deep down, what she's hoping for.

5:44.

The ticking of the clock is so loud in her ears and time moves by slowly, like a drip of honey or something. Maybe tar would be more fitting.

She looks over to Alex and hates the way her gut twists. The idea that she might hurt him kills her. He's her best friend in so many ways and she hates seeing him in pain. She does love him just maybe not in the way that he wants her too.

He's just sat on the chair next to her bed, staring down at his phone, probably looking at the time, and he couldn't look happier. He looks like nothing could go wrong and she wishes, not for the first time, that he wasn't quite so in love with her. It's selfish, in a way, but she kind of resents him for it. For giving her this power over him, to hurt him so thoroughly. She never asked for this, she doesn't want this, yet she finds herself here nevertheless.

5:45.

He looks up and smiles at her, this honest smile, so full of happiness and love and care and she wishes he wouldn't look at her like that, not right now. She doesn't quite know how to deal with that look, not when she might break his heart in a few minutes.

“Alex.” She doesn't knows if the tone of her voice gives her away but to her own ears she sounds like a military officer, stood in front of a mother who just got the worst news of their lives.

Alex doesn't seem to notice because he just smiles wider.

5:46.

“I just...If this doesn't go the way you think it's going to…”  

She has no idea what to say but she's knows she running out of time and that she has to say something.

“Nico? What are you talking about?”  

Oh, god. He sounds so confused and Nico hates herself because she should have stopped this week's ago but she was just being selfish, scared. She thought that if he found out this way, like that it's fate or destiny or God or whatever making this choice then it isn't her fault and that somehow she'd feel better, but, god, it's so much worse.

“God, Alex, I’m just…”  

Her words are hard to get out, her throat clogged with emotion because she seriously can't stand herself right now and how could she do this to Alex? To someone who cares about her and is there for her unconditionally. She might lose him now, she wouldn't blame him. If she were in his shoes she knows she hold a grudge in a tightly clasped fist until it festered into pure hatred. She wouldn't blame him if he never spoke to her again but she can't help but hope, selfishly, that someday, maybe, they'll be friends again.

“I'm so fucking sorry.”  

She says because she, god, she knows, deep down that it's not him. She knows on some level that he cares way more about her that she does about him and maybe that's why it's so hard, maybe if she cared just a much, maybe if she's was going to hurt just as much, it'd be better. She knows that isn't what Alex would want but in this moment, where she can't help but hate herself so fully for what she's done, she wishes that she was going to get hurt. Though, deep down, she knows that she only wants that because maybe it'll take away some of this overbearing guilt that she's feeling. Selfish.  

She watches through bleary, tear filled eyes, as his smile slips off his face and she hates herself for crying. How dare she cry, when she's the one that's hurting Alex. She hates that even in this moment she's happy, hates that for her to be happy, she has to hurt Alex. She hates all that but on some level she's happy because she knows that she's going to find someone that’s everything, everything Alex couldn't be, everything she wishes she he was.  

5:47pm.

“Nico, what-”

He's cut off when Nico hisses, a sharp pain in her back making her squeeze her eyes shut. Her hand covers the spot, somewhere around her left shoulder blade, as if that'll make the pain stop. It only lasts a few moments and it doesn't really hurt that much and before she knows it is over.  

She blinks her eyes open and she can't help but feel that it was a bit anticlimactic, like it should've been a bigger moment, like maybe she should have had to pay more for what she's about to gain. She's left in stunned silence because she knows that her entire life has just changed. She's scared and hesitant, and excited and elated.  

Alex is sort of hovering in front of her, left in that awkward spot after lunging a bit towards her when she hissed out in pain. He meets her eyes and maybe Nico is just imagining it but his eyes look a bit duller than they did a minute ago.

“Can I…” She ask, hesitantly and Nico just nods.

She's thankful for the fact that it's on her back, as she turns ago, so she doesn't have to see his face. Maybe that's the entire reason it’s on her back, for this moment. She knows it's selfish but she's glad. She lifts the back of her shirt and she hears his sharp inhale, then a shaky exhale. She doesn't know what to do in this moment, she doesn't have anything  to console him or to heal. She has no idea what to do.

“What does it say?” She asks and her voice is so small it's almost as if she hopes Alex doesn't hear her.

“You-” His voice cracks and he has to clear his throat. She’s never heard him like this and another bout of self loathing hits her, like a wave, brutally crashing into her. “You should look yourself.” He says and she can hear him climb off the bed, the springs squeaking awfully, and she spins around because she has to say something.

“Alex, wait.” She doesn't think that her voice has ever sounded so pleading, so desperate. Her soulmark is the furthest thing from her mind, in this moment, because she has the rest of her life to worry about that but if she doesn't say something right now she'll regret it because she may never get another chance.

He turns around and it looks like it physically pains him to look her in the eye.

“I'm sorry.” She says again but she has nothing else.

“I know you are.” He sounds honest when be says that and Nico can't help but be relieved.

“I am, I'm so sorry. I should have said something.”  

“Yeah.” He says and an awkward silence stretches for a second and Nico knows that all he wants to do is leave and maybe she's being selfish but she needs to ask before he does.

“Are we okay?”

He pauses for a moment, a beat of silence where he looks unsure, like this to too much to ask of him and Nico hates herself, wants to take the words back.

“We will be, probably. Hopefully.” He says before she has the chance to take it back.

She nods and manages a small smile. Alex smiles back but it comes nowhere near his eyes.

Alex turns and leaves the room and Nico hates the relieved sigh that leaves her mouth. She sits in silence for a moment, mourning a relationship she knew would end eventually. She isn't heartbroken but it hurts.

She shakes her head and stands up, moving over to her mirror. She turns and cranes her neck to look over her shoulder awkwardly. Her hands are shaking when she lifts her shirt and takes in the words that'll forever be etched into her skin.

Karolina Dean.

Her fingers skim over the intricate, curly, lettering and it's Karolina’s handwriting, she knows it is, she's seen it enough. She's never considered the idea of her soulmate being a girl, let alone one of her closest friends, someone that's been right there in front of her all these years. She's never looked at Karolina like that before, never thought she could be anything more than a friend but now that she thinks about it…

Karolina is gorgeous. Nico's known this for forever but now she isn't just acknowledging it, she feels it in her bones. Karolina is so beautiful, it sort of makes her ache, it's painful. Sometimes it makes her just pause, where the light hits her just right and she looks otherworldly, ethereal, like something that can't possibly exist in this world, like something out of fairy tales. She's never been jealous of it and maybe that should have been something of a hint because anyone in their right might would be, especially when it's so close, right there, and she sees in all the time. Karolina has the kind of beauty that inspires artists, that inspires songs and poems and paintings.

Karolina isn't only pretty, she's the kind of person that words like sweet, kind, gentle and pure were invented for. She's so impossibly kind that sometimes Nico thinks that she's something out of a cartoon and from anyone else it'd come off as insincere but Karolina is the most genuine person she knows. When Karolina smiles, she smiles with everything she has, with so much emotion, that it can be overwhelming, the way it makes Nico feel like she's the only person in the world that matters. Karolina cares so much, so fully that it's scary. Whenever Nico has felt anything close to sad, Karolina is always there but at the same time she doesn't push and if Nico says she needs space, Karolina will give it to her, because Karolina doesn't care to give herself some kind of self satisfaction but simply because she cares.

She and Karolina have known each other for years, been friends for years. She's close with Karolina in a way she couldn't think possible with anyone else. She's comfortable with Karolina in a way that she only is with her family. Maybe because, in a way, she's always considered Karolina like family because her affection and her care always seemed so genuine, so unconditional that Nico would have actually had to force herself not to sink into this place of comfort and familiarity with Karolina.

She looks up after minutes of just staring at her mark and she sees this smile on her face, so purely happy that she almost doesn't recognise herself.

She didn't know she could smile like that.

She drops her shirt with a happy sigh and throws herself back onto her bed, feeling warm and content in a way that she never has before.

Maybe she should be more shocked that it's a girl, more concerned about how her family might react but she isn't. It just feels right.

Her phone buzzes from its place on her bedside table and she picks it up and she didn't know her smile could get wider but it feels like it does when she sees a text from Karolina.

All it says is ‘You okay?’ and Nico kind of feels like an idiot because of the way she grins down at the message.  

‘Yeah, I'm good’ is the message that she sends back and she receives about fifteen heart emojis back. If anyone else send her that message she'd just scoff and probably gag a bit, but with Karolina it just kind of makes her want to cry.

\--

She doesn't tell Karolina. She doesn't know why. Maybe it's because when she does it'll be so real, so final. They'll be soulmates and that's such an intimidating thought, that they'll spend the rest of their lives together when the possibility hasn't even crossed Nico's mind once in the past six years. Maybe it's because sometimes she doesn't feel like she could possibly be enough for Karolina because Karolina is perfect and she's just her. Maybe it's because she wants to see the moment it happens where her name is etched into Karolina's skin and Karolina finds out for the first time. Maybe it's because it's something new and exciting and scary and she has no idea how to navigate this new dimension to their relationship.

Karolina's birthday is in a month anyway so she can wait. It's hard but she manages it.

It's hard because everything she didn't notice about Karolina is so glaringly obvious. How obviously beautiful she is and how it affects her, how it makes her heart race from just the smallest thing. Karolina tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, Karolina biting her lip in concentration, Karolina smiling. Her eyes are drawn to Karolina lips and she's pretty sure she's been caught staring multiple times. She doesn't know how she didn't notice this before, the way her eyes just follow Karolina whenever she's in her line of sight. It doesn't matter what she's doing, Nico's entranced and she can't keep her eyes off her.

She doesn't know how she didn't notice the way Karolina makes her feel. How when Karolina smiles she smiles. How when Karolina laughs it's makes her buzz with warmth. How when Karolina looks at her it makes her heart race so hard it feels like it might never stop.

So she doesn't say anything and it's hard, it's so hard because all she wants to do is kiss Karolina but she manages it. The days drag by but eventually Karolina's birthday arrives.

Karolina asks her to be there when it happens and Nico is relieved because she had no idea how to ask, she had no idea how to ask but she definitely had to be there, she had to see Karolina reaction. Would she be happy? Would she be confused? Would she be…

She tries not to think about it, not to think about all the worst cases that have been haunting her like ghosts.

She has never been as nervous as she was that night before Karolina’s birthday. They have to stay up all night because of course Karolina had to be born at three in the goddamn morning. So they watch random movies on Netflix and Nico tries to keep her eyes open.

She must have feel asleep eventually because the next thing she knows Karolina is shaking her awake. It’s something she could get used to, being woken up by Karolina. It’s cheesy as fuck but Karolina being the first thing she sees every morning is all she wants out of life

“Hey.” Nico says, sleep still clinging to her tone and Karolina just smiles at her and Nico wishes that she could, just, somehow, keep that smile with her, hold onto it somehow.

“It's in like five minutes. You fell asleep.” Karolina says and she doesn't even sound nervous. Which is insane to Nico because she was about ready to throw up five minutes before she got her mark.

Silence fills the room, Karolina just staring at the clock on her bedside table with this excellent twinkling in her eyes and Nico restlessly playing with her own figures.

She can't help but think about how Karolina is going to react. She might be mad that Nico didn't tell her. She might be annoyed, or sad, or shocked.

There's also this thought, hiding away in the back of her mind of someone else's name somehow appearing on Karolina's skin. She's never heard of anything like that happening before but she can't help but think that she'd be the first. She can't help but imaging having to watch Karolina fall in love with someone else.

A question pops into her mind and she has no idea why she actually lets it escape from her mouth. Nothing good can come of it but she needs something right now because she's seriously starting to panic. She just needs something. Anything.

“Do you have any idea who it might be?”

The atmosphere is thick, or at least to her it is. Karolina looks completely unaware. She probably just doesn't get how important her answer is to Nico. If she says someone else's name Nico thinks that her heart would snap in two. She wishes she could take the words back as soon as she says them.

Karolina just looks at her, staring right into her eyes, her soul, or some shit. It feels like Karolina can see her, completely, right now. She she can see more than whatever is there, like she can see something huge and magical and amazing and Nico's heart literally stops.

“Yeah, I know who it is.”

“W-what do you mean you _know_?”

“I know who my soulmate is.”

Nico literally can't breath. She feels this overwhelming sense of anticipation building up inside her and she thinks it might tear her in two. She just needs to hear it, hear Karolina’s voice. Hear her say the only thing Nico wants to more than anything in the world.

“Who?” She barely whispers, as if it's all she can spare, as if it's all she can give.

Karolina smiles and takes Nico's hands and it feels like electricity and fire and pure fucking ecstasy spreads across her skin. It feels like something is swelling up in the air around her and everything sort of slows down. This is it. This is the moment her life changes.

“It's you.” Karolina says it like its obvious, like there couldn't be any other answer and the words sound so impossibly sweet to Nico. She could spend her entire life trying to find something, some experience, to match this and she knows she'd fail. There's nothing more amazing than this moment. She can feel tears welling up in her eyes and she doesn't even give a shit, she lets them fall freely.

Karolina reaches up and catches one and Nico feels like she's being brushed by sunlight. She sends up a prayer or a thought or whatever. To whoever is listening. She thanks them, fate, god, whoever, anyone, for giving this amazing girl to her.

Then the clock turns and Karolina winches. On the hand that was cradling her cheek, Nico watches, with utter awe, as her entire life, her fate, her destiny, etches itself into Karolina's skin. She stares at it through blurry eyes and she doesn't think she ever wants to stop.

_Nico Minoru._

“How did you know?”

“I can't imagine loving anyone else.”

Nico meets Karolina's eyes and she's pulled forward by something. She feels Karolina breath ghost across her lips, warm and comforting.

“You are such a dork.” Nico says because, god, what kind of line is that.

Nico leans her forehead against Karolina's, just to be there, just to be close. She wishes she could spend the rest of her life in this moment.

“Yeah, a dork you're in love with.”

Nico can't help the smile that crosses her face.

“Yeah.”

Seconds pass, just two people completely content with the idea of being near each other, knowing that fate wants them there.

“Really though, that would've be so awkward if we weren't soulmates.”

Karolina just laughs.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
